Convention For The Suppression of The Illicit Traffic in Dangerous Drugs

The Convention for the Suppression of the Illicit Traffic in Dangerous Drugs was a drug control treaty signed in 1936.

Harry Anslinger representing the United States attempted to add provisions to criminalize all activities – cultivation, production, manufacture and distribution – related to the use of opium, coca (and its derivatives) and cannabis for non-medical and non-scientific purposes. Other countries objected to this proposal, so the Convention's focus remained on trafficking. The U.S. considered the final treaty to be too weak, and refused to sign it, fearing that it might have to weaken its own controls to comply with the treaty. The Convention therefore had little effect, although it was the first treaty to make certain drug offenses international crimes; all the previous treaties had dealt with regulating licit drug activity.

Famous quotes containing the words convention, suppression, illicit, traffic, dangerous and/or drugs:

    “No convention gets to be a convention at all except by grace of a lot of clever and powerful people first inventing it, and then imposing it on others. You can be pretty sure, if you are strictly conventional, that you are following genius—a long way off. And unless you are a genius yourself, that is a good thing to do.”
    —Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)

    “Fashion required the suppression of all naturalness—’to walk upright, with unbending joints; to shake hands after the pump- handle formula; to look inexpressibly indifferent towards everybody and everything; and speak only in a mincing voice was to be a decorous member of society.’”
    —For the State of Rhode Island, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    “The anger
    that my friends
    planted in my heart
    when they somehow found
    a hole in it
    ran off
    like an illicit lover
    as soon as I saw my man.”
    —Hla Stavhana (c. 50 A.D.)

    “Too much traffic with a quotation book begets a conviction of ignorance in a sensitive reader. Not only is there a mass of quotable stuff he never quotes, but an even vaster realm of which he has never heard.”
    —Robertson Davies (b. 1913)

    “Insane!... Ask the tyrant who is his most dangerous foe, the sane man or the insane?”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “There is not much sense in suffering, since drugs can be given for pain, itching, and other discomforts. The belief has long died that suffering here on earth will be rewarded in heaven. Suffering has lost its meaning.”
    —Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (b. 1926)